Ok guys was just messing around at my buddy's house last weekend and he had an old door that came out of his shop so I decided to pattern my two waterfowl loads. I shot 3" #2's kent silver steel and 3.5" bb kent silver steel. Both at 40 yards and had almost identical patterns. Would the 3" bring down geese as well as the bb or should I stick with the bb for geese. I didn't count pellets and was just thinking about it after the fact but honestly looking at it could not tell which pattern was which if you didn't know. Also penetration was very similar as most dented the back side and 3-5 pellets of each went clean thru. Just looking for suggestions on what to shoot. We usually aren't firing shots over 50 yards.

1450fps BB's would work on large Honkers at 45-50 yards ,no problem with all but going away shots.I have used as low as 1295 1 1/4oz. BB's for 40 yard geese but only if coming in or going over me at 40-45 yards.

I prefer 1550fps but your loads will work if you know how far they will kill at your elevation if you have a energy chart.I have used smaller size pellets but always come back to BB's for maximum energy to break wing bones and get by those heavy feathers, since I mostly hunt ducks and the geese are c/o pass shooting shots,90% of the time.

Jon Bergren wrote:What's the velocity of the 2's and BB's. With this info I can give you the distance that they will penetrate to kill. Ned S

ned is far too one-dimensional in his advice.Those "penetrate to kill" figures tell nothing about the effectiveness of a particular load. It only deals with the maximum distance at which an individual pellet of X size, traveling at Y velocity will penetrate ballistic gelatin Z inches.In almost every case, the effective pattern of a load will fail long before the penetrating energy of the individual pellets dissipates to below acceptable minimums. In other words, those "penetrate to kill" yardages are the last thing to worry about.

If PTK ranges were the only thing that is important in deciding on a load, we'd all be shooting T shot at 2200fps.